Which was a good sign, the good doctor concluded. The tests had all showed up normal, and there were no obvious signs for Vito Santillan’s heart to be less than...slightly okay. He was 90, after all.
But they did want to put him under observation for another day, which was why Santi and Miro were arranging their dinner spread on the tiniest countertop ever. His father had rushed off to the hospital offices, looking for a way to claim Lolo’s PhilHealth benefits, leaving the two brothers in the room to arrange the family meal. Three and a half hours to go.
“I had plans, you know,” Miro groaned to his brother. “Lissy Co was hosting a party at the penthouse in Discovery Suites; I wanted to have a bellini and say ‘fuck you’ to this past year.”
“I didn’t realize you were having a particularly bad year,” Santi said, his brow rising.
“Well, Kuya, it is possible that you don’t actually know everything.” Miro rolled his eyes. “I suppose you had plans in Lipa. Chasing pigs, whatever it is people do in the probinsya.”
“Miro.” Santi knew full well that his brother knew that he was being an ass. He was, for some reason, trying to get a rise out of Santi, which didn’t really sit well with the older Santillan. Unfortunately, it was also working really, really well. “Try not to act like such an elitist ass sometime.”
“Knock back a few rounds of gin bulag, light a few fireworks,” Miro continued, disregarding his brother’s obvious agitation. “Kiss a probinsyana.”
“Miro,” Santi hissed at his brother. “Stop talking. Let’s forget about the fact that you were born in Batangas just like I was. Lipa is my home. I won’t let you insult it.”
“Oh, it’s yourhomenow, is it?” Miro asked in a mocking tone. He was maybe just teasing, but there was no kindness to it, and it sounded like he was directly trying to hit Santi. “I suppose that begging Lolo to tell you how you could come back was something he just made up?”
Santi did his best not to show any reaction to that. In the past, he thought that he loved Miro enough to ignore those little digs, sometimes direct stabs, into Santi’s ego, his choices and his attempts to figure out what having a “good life” meant. But now, Miro just looked like a petulant child, trying to poke Santi into any kind of reaction for what? Satisfaction? Some strange form of revenge?
“What’s happening?” Vito asked, groggily, waking up from his nap and narrowing his eyes at his grandsons. “The both of you are loud.”
Technically it was the first time he was really seeing Santi in the room. He’d done his best to avoid staying too long inside, speaking with the doctors, getting his prescriptions refilled, finding all the reasons to not have to be there when Vito woke up.
“Do you have the deed of sale?” Vito asked Santi. He couldn’t catch a break.
“No, Lolo,” he said, as if he had any plans to move forward with that. He knew he couldn’t stall forever, but at least stalling for now had to be an option. It had only been, what, a week since Vito issued his challenge?
“Useless,” he said, completely glossing over the fact that the Carlton would not have been able to expand to Cebu and CDO without Santi, that he was still contributing to the company now, even after his unceremonious (and quite frankly, illegal) dismissal. “You will never be able to come back to Manila if you continue to be useless.”
But see, did Santi really still want to come back to Manila? Vito was asking him to give up everything he’d built in the last three years, in exchange for what? Feeling good that he’d done right by his family?
On a trip to Tokyo once upon a time, Vito had described their family as similar to the Tokyo subway system—a bowl of noodles someone had tossed to the ground, twisted and tangled, and infinitely messy and complicated. He’d liked that comparison, and still brought it up frequently.
“Ganyan tayo,” his grandfather said proudly.
Irreparably tangled together, tighter the more someone tried to break free. Santi supposed he wanted the family to be close, but knots were needlessly complicated things, and impossible to unknot when you needed it to.
Unless you cut yourself off completely,he thought darkly. Which was immediately followed by,Fuck, I wish I was in Lipa.
Life there wasn’t quite so easy, but at least it was a difficulty he could navigate. A difficulty he could breathe through. Being here almost felt like he was drowning.
There was some commotion in the hallway as Santi stared at his grandfather, completely at a loss for what to say, when the door swung open, and his mother walked in, her face bright red with anger and her hands shaking.
“Thenerveof her,” she said, shaking her head. “Ang kapal talaga! Santi, you tell her to leave, and tell her don’t come back na.”
There was only one person in the world who could raise Joyce’s blood pressure like this. Only one person who could make her so nervous. Santi sighed and walked out to the hallway, where he saw his Tita Valeria leaning against the opposite wall, carrying a fruit basket and smiling wryly at her pamangkin.
“Let me guess,” she said, like she and Santi hadn’t been estranged for the last ten years. “They’ve sent you to deal with me.”
“Hi, Tita,” Santi said, coming over to kiss his aunt on the cheek. Her skin was soft and papery, and he almost didn’t recognize her until she’d spoken to him. But other than that, his aunt looked good. Looked happy, almost. “It’s good to see you.”
“Does Tatay even know that I...” Tita Valeria asked, shaking her head. “Never mind. I heard Tatay was in the hospital and I thought...well, I don’t know what I thought, but it’s New Year’s Eve, and I’ve got suha.”
She held up the basket, filled to the brim with bright yellow-green orbs, all marked with a sticker declaring it “fresh from Davao.”
“He does like suha,” Santi agreed, accepting the basket. He noted his aunt was still looking at the door like she was seriously considering if she should force her way inside. Santi felt a little pang in his chest. Seeing Tita Ria almost felt like a foreshadowing of what his life could be like, very soon.
“He’s fine, Tita,” Santi assured her, because if he couldn’t let her inside, he could at least give her a little comfort. “The tests were all clear, they just wanted to keep him under observation.”
